PR 6015 
.E36 P8 
1913b 
Copy 1 



APHRODITE 
AT LEATHERHEAD 



BY 

JOHN HELSTON 



Copyright, i 913 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1913 



APHRODITE 
AT LEATHERHEAD 



BY 

JOHN HELSTON 



Copyright, 1913 
By THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 



THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1913 



^'''. 



ii^ 



©CI.A3 4 6;3 7 

ils I 



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APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD * 

Four streams: whose whole delight in island 

lawns, 
Dark-hanging ålder dusks and willows påle 
0'er shining grey-green shadowed waterways, 
Makes murmur ing haste of exit from the vale — 
Through fourteen arches voluble 
Where river tide-weed sways. 
Whose burthen is of things insoluble 
From hidden deeps below the hills where yawns 
Some veinous and insatiable Desire, 
That sits for ever there 

* Without presuming to "present" Mr. Helston after 
the manner of fashionable actors, we think it will in- 
terest the public to know that he was for years a work- 
ing mechanic — turner, fitter, &c. — in electrical, locomo- 
tive, motor-car, and other workshops. 



4 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 

V\ hen Summer fills the valley with slow fire, 
Whereto the stealthy Mole is minister 
In secret places damp and caverns dire. 

Red brick-work Hchened grey; grey stone to 

green : 
Mossed corner-crannies flowerful with iiame : 
And red roofs hiding daily deeper now, 
As Spring comes quietly the hills between — 
With deeper breath misting the elms below. 
And the old walls — but yellow ere she came — 
Are gladly golden as they take the sun; 
And brightly bronze about them poplars 

grow. ... 
All things in shine and shadow seem to know 
That spring is everywhere and benison. 

Clear to their pebbled floors the waters move 
To mix their several courses in one tide. . . . 



APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 5 

And there I saw Spring floating, like a bride 
Veiled in the weft of her own dreams : and Love 
Laughed in the spray he shook from off his vans ; 
And through bright water-drops his countenance 
Was roguish as a young god's face above 
The amorous ways of some white nymph, grown 

coy 
Of love for long, till conquered by the boy 
Among her secret rushes. I descried 
These things, and others, on the southern side. 

Yea, all was sweetly, of a sudden, stränge. 
Were no more houses, but great woods that 

passed 
Into the shadows of some mountain range 
Crowned with a sunlight coronet of snows. 
Now shining flowers, by verdant glooms o'ercast, 
Along a bank beside blue water rose. 



6 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 

Blue water broken by low waterfalls 

And plashy places, strewn with rocks and sand, 

As Naiads would delight. There one did stånd 

In a broad sunlight; like some statue planned 

Of Love himself, whose marble meaning calls 

Out of the ages : — more a vital thing 

Than many a heart of beats grown dead to 

spring, 
Whose body is a sepulchre that palls, 
With its own pallid plinth, all burgeoning 
Of primal joys at Lovens chief festivals. 
All loveliness to make one greatly mad 
With dreams whereof men grow more madly 

great 
Upon that glory which, of starry date, 
Crowns Beauty's co-eternal high estate; 
All these^good things she had. 
There was a sweet, pure passion in her eyes 



APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 7 

To make all cynic sense grow gladly wise — 
E'en sorrow, wisely glad. 

All things, it seemed, to her were ministers : 
Thrushes, flute-throated, shook the shades with 

song, 
In amorous, rich, and lovely echoes long. 
So, nightingales in sunlight would rehearse 
Their moontide music : and a fairy throng 
Of blue-winged btitterflies would oft repair 
To visit the broad blossom of her hair, 
That, like some golden-hanging creeper, clung 
Round the wild rose-buds of her bosom there. 
All things that deem it more to live and die, 
And to bring forth and blossom, than to lose 
The fear of death by being never born, 
Did pilgrimage about her feet — to vie 
In plenitude of thanks. And each in turn, 



8 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 

Among a many there, had power to choose 
That gift she deemed most gracious. Thus 

cuckoos 
Made woodland evening mellow with their cry, 
Rut sometimes sang all night, till they should 

learn 
The ordered harmony of night and morn 
That pleased her most. And all that liberty 
Which is Lovens servant and his great reward — 
Whose virtue bids growth grow, and melody 
Be made of bird, and leaves' delightful tune, 
And the green grateful guerdon of the sward 
Be gladder, being free; 

And all the phased enchantment of the moon, 
And every change of sun or starry light, 
That made her woodland places wonderful 
With cloud and beams and shadows dark or 

bright — 



APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 9 

All these did praise her of their own accord, 
Whilst all around was heard, 
On loom-gales tender över day and night, 
The mystery of Love's most lovely word, 
Spring's foam-flung "APHRODITE." 

All white she was, but as the foam of May 

Is white on apple-orchards under stars. 

Her like I have not seen by mortal day, 

By many a night, when dreams were avatars 

Of Love's delight, I have not seen it. Nay! 

Not since youth died, and love has passed 

away. . . . 
It may be few are tempted so as are 
Poets ; for whom is woman's loveliness 
Made lovelier than morning may express 
With all those hues whereof her melting står 
Is tender witness. Through the evening woods 



lo APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 

Song floating on the sunset's ardent floods 

Is very lovely : and there is a noon, 

So tense with Summeras passionate distress 

Of extreme silent Beauty's breathlessness 

That all things seem to swoon 

Down the large luxury of languor's dreams — 

So prodigal it teems 

With passion's trance, mid-rapture craves for 

boon. 
All greatly good are these: their several praise 
Make up the total of the poet's ways, 
That lead his soul to God that is in art. 
But surer lies there even, 
Of all his roads to heaven: — 
High dreams, wherein a woman plays her 

part. 
Where, mingled in some supreme period, 
Their blood accelerates the heart of God. 



APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD ii 

Who has loved greatly has more greatly lived 
Than those for whom is life a market-place. 
Not for his breadth of Being were contrived 
Of man the scales, or measure of his grace. 
But he has made his bargain face to face 
With God — if there be God in more than lies 
Of ancient vogue, that in the Truth's disguise 
Were hawked by priests as unction for sore eyes, 
Till all the world was blinded, and fell down 
Be före such gods beside whom wood and stone 
Were truths of wholesome aspect. At the throne 
Of her, God's goddess of the year's great Truth 
That is in Spring and primal Naturens passion, 
I did fall down in fancy of such fashion 
That all my soul, and body too, f orsooth ! 
Cried out in worship holy. Like a youth, 
When Longing's ecstasies would fan the fires 
Of love's delirium to stränge desires 



12 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 

That häng 'twixt earth and heaven, was I then! 
Forgotten, all, were baser things of men: 
All baseness known of women I forgot. 
And all the morning of pure passion's pain 
Rang rapturous responses through my brain — 
Love's own dear antidote. 

Then spake I to this lady in such wise : — 

''O Incarnation lovely of my Love, 

O lovely lust of Increase called of Spring, 

Bride of Burgeoning, 

1 am become all bridegroom for thine eyes ! 
In every sense of me thine echoes teem : 
By this broad mirror of the noon above 
The stars still set and rise 

To watch thee from the darkness of their dream! 
Their passion I can trace 
Reflected in thy f ace ! 



APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 13 

For thee, with voice of worship, calls the stream; 

The slow clouds rise from holy mountain tops 

Like incense for thee blown in silver steam ; 

And the pure fountain dröps 

Her singing shade of rainbows through the beam ! 

All things are quick to love, this April day. 

There is a world of longing in the wind 

About thy tresses twined : 

It listeth, or it lusteth — Who shall say? 

"O Goddess of the glory in green leaves, 
I am heart-hungry, I, thy worshipper! 
And fasting sense within my soul perceives, 
Thou lovely whisperer, 
That famished I may feed my full of thee! 
Let US behind the mountains and the sea 
To some far land where sorrow never dwells, 
Nor ever evil comes; 



14 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 

Where of ten I ha ve tracked thee through the 

delis, 
And thy soft south wind roams, 
Laden with f ragrant breathing of bluebells ! 
There may I mix myself with bounteous thine : 
In all my various need and veins I pine : 
Let me be made one with thee, and divine! 

"God gave His sanction, surely, when He gave 
A soul to man and beauty to the world. 
To claim the light within a falling wave, 
The moonrise and the daydawn dew-empearled, 
And every daedal impulse of the sun, 
For Joy's own bride, Imagination. 
To fill with increase earthly truth, and save, 
With gracious things, the soul this side the 

grave. . . . 
And thou, O lovely One, art all of Truth! 



APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 15 

Thou art Truth's greatest goddess, that I know : 

Long have I loved thee, from my youngest youth 

Upwards. Oh, hear me, Goddess ; let us go ! 

And, as we go, forgive that I have sinned 

In loving thee too little anywhere ! 

I hear a voice of whispers on the wind : 

'Fair as she is, she yet would be more fair, 

And yet more dear, for thee to clasp her there, 

Than thou hast ever known!' 

Surely the fountain^s shade is in thy hair, 

Clear-falling, full of music of low tone. 

And trees are surely making lovely moan 

To swell my longing's prayer : — 

Alone! — the fountain; and the trees — alone! 

Oh, hearken! Oh, mine only goddess, hark! 

Immortal ocean mads me — yon great pine 

Voices that sea whereon we will embark 

For lands of love, where lesser suns grow dark 



1 6 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 

Behind us, and be före us, greater shine 

On thine own island always! where the lark 

Sings without ceasing, and his cloud of song 

Is all of cloud 'twixt us and deep blue heaven! — 

Lest thou shouldst slay me of this madness 

stark, 
Lest I, perchance, of love should do thee 

wrong. . . . 
I could do ravishment upon thee, even! 

''Oh, no ! I meant it not, my Aphrodite ! 

Be not in haste to anger thee for such! 

If I did haste to lead me to delight, 

Blame me not now for loving thee too much ! 

See, with a song Fil charm thee till art kind; 

Till all things matter nothing, only love! 

ril woo thee till art won for very shame 

Thou didst keep Love long waiting but to prove 



APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 17 

The patience, not the passion, of his kind — 
The wisdom, not the wonder, of his name! 

''Where thy green howers are, hy the white foam, 

Oh, Aphrodité, be mine! 

O' er waves of that song the sea sings in the pine 

I am fain to pursue thee, to follow thee home, 

To Desire's own echoing shrinef 

Dark the stars are above us: wait not for the 

nig ht. 
Oh, haste! Let us love by thine own April light, 
To those dream-island murmurs of thine, 
Aphrodité! 
Aphrodité! Springas lady! Be mine!'' 

Then did my lady from her gracious eyes 
Make only answer for a Httle space ; 
But dreams as old as any paradise 
Were passing o'er the Eden of her face. 



i8 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 

She made as if to speak me answer thrice; 
And twice there came a whisper full of ''Nays !" 
And once there came a whisper full of sighs — 
She was a very woman in her ways ! 
Whoso has heard the birch-wood's voice of 

praise 
In all her leafy languages arise, 
When warm winds mould her myriad hair of 

green, 
With sunlight soft between; 
And tenderness and tuneful artifice, 
Has heard an echo, but he has not seen 
How breathed my ladyns bosom then, I ween ! 
For — shaking out her shining hair — thuswise 
She sang; and for the manner how she sang, 
I think the wind sang like it to the sea 
A million years ago, 
Or by some Cytherean promontory 



APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 19 

That morning when from ocean' s cave she 

sprang, 
With warm hair wet and heavy, hanging low, 
All foam and mystery. 

*7 am more fair, and haply far more human, 
Than mört al maids ungracioiis in their love? 

Love of Mine, that woiildst so have me woman, 
The sim sees, all the sky looks down above! . . . 
My bosom for a great delight of kisses 
Grows tender, as to woo me to t hy mind. 

1 am grown fain to hide me in my tresses. . . . 
Nay, then! shall Aphrodité prove iinkind? 
And am I fair, and am I dear to the ef 

O Love, O Love! that thon so temptest me!'' 

And I went to her : we were all alone ! 
And very real and near my lady smiled. 
And very far away had all things gone 



20 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 

With Love's own lonely landscapes reconciled 
But hardly. Now a shade of April trees 
Made murmur through the kisses of the sun 
About our coming, and a choir of birds 
Sang all at once old Hymen's morning 

hymn. . . . 
I did not see there any Cherubim 
Or flaming swords, or flaming fiddlesticks, 
To frighten folk away with fire-work tricks. 
And all the snakes were silent that were there 
Save those soft golden ones — my lady's hair, 
Through which she of t would whisper golden 

words 
So all her hair grew eloquent, and dim 
With golden shadow all her countenance. 
I thought the blue love-lightnings of her glance 
Had waked men made of Arctic-midnight cold, 
Had made more timid love be overbold : 



APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 21 

For me, I walked in trance, 

Too tender to be fearful, organ-souled, 

From which she shook the utmost chords o i 

sense, 
That trembled round her wild white innocence 
Like choral dawns round life's high places rolled. 

We two alone through all an April shade! 
Great hollies flickered argent fire and gloomed 
Like dark blue midnight memories that loomed 
Still permeate with brooding sense of stars. 
And with a sense of day's own dye there bloomed 
Long spaces steeped in bluebells' azure light, 
Till earth rose heaven. Soft winds disarrayed 
The birch with splendour so her myriad hairs 
Were as green water-fountains falling bright 
About shy limbs of their own silver sprite. 
And from her greenwood lairs 



22 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 

Did Echo steal on Echo unawares, 

Through many a silent breathing of blown trees 

And shadow-haunted glade 

Across a world of woodland : then the breeze 

Burdened with brine and long-drawn cadences, 

Deep, solemn-sounding only as the sea's ! 

Now flashed the foam-white crescent wave and 

curled 
The long blue shine of waters crowding home 
With all the plangent pulse of ocean's world, 
Eager to fill each separate mouth of foam 
With sigh of breathing kisses salt and slow. 
And print its passioned progress o'er the strand : 
The sun was scarce more golden than the sand 
Among the dunes of grassy beaches low. 
And from the sea-wind's wide-flung first embrace 
That shook the birches' hair with amorous storms 



APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 23 

Such sweet, strong madness shuddered through 

the place 
We two were nigh to panic, in alarms 
That only lovers f eel when face to face 
And joys to warmer grow. 
I dur st not ask surrender of those charms 
She was become as eager to forgo 
As I to lose my way amid her arms, 
As she to lose her woman's way of ''No !" 
Her sense and mine swayed, trembled, danced, 

and flung 
Madly against each other. The blue sky 
Darkened against a darker sea. We clung — 
We two together — for a space, to sigh 
And pant with longings inarticulate 
In any language save of starry date 
That Love interprets through tumultuous tears 
His own warm wishes dye, 



24 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 

For everlasting meaning to the years ; 

God's breath of Lust, love's lips would sanctify. 

In every vein some ancestor of old 

Who clasped his bride in caverns oversea 

Spake to me then ; and Passion's paean rolled 

Mute from the margins of eternity 

With its own might of message. ''Comfort me! 

O Love of Mine, you loved me long ago : 

Because thou art, thou wast — in Arcady ! — 

Before Lovens lure was laid in Ilion! — 

Before Astarte or Semiramis, 

Thou sawest in far forgotten years agone 

How the moon held her midnight mysteries 

In the untrodden places of the snow 

On highest Himalaya! — We were one 

In sun-warm sands that waited Babylon, 

O Love of Mine that loved me long ago! 



APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 25 

\Vt two may meet and mix but once, no more, 

In each of all our myriad lives, and oh! 

A myriad streams of mingling through me flow 

To mate with thine, beloved, by the shore !" 

She spake it; and I knew her mine to love 

In her most intimate and tender trance, 

In rapture where the inner circumstance 

Of Being breaks in primal blowth above 

The bridal-beds of elementary pain. 

I watched her pure eyes clouding with the stain 

Of passion-surges grown intolerable 

xA^gainst the flood-gates of her maidenhood: 

And in her face a lovely shameful mood 

Stained, with its blushing darkness of eclipse, 

Her white skin scarlet as her anxious lips 

That whispered : 'Tove me when the tide is 

full!" 
She had slipped down and left me so I stood 



26 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 

As one from dreams, when sudden waking strips, 
From out the closure of his arms, delight 
In some dear woman, captive all the night, 
Whose tender ministrations memories mock 
Through empty, hateful portals at his blood. 
She had slipped down beneath me so I stood 
Shaken, in that green shadow of the wood; 
Swaying, and staring at the stricken trees 
Writhing among embraces of the breeze, 
I saw their white limbs rock : 
Without, I heard the echoes of the tide. . . . 
And now she made a place for me beside 
Her lithe limbs laid among deep grass and good 
For lovely strife at amorous victories : 
She hid her face within its golden hood 
Or ardent hair, her only veil, — my bride ! 
And as I kissed her through it, "At the 
flood. . . . 



APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 27 

At the full flood-tide take me!'' then she gasped. 
And so we waited, mutely mad through all 
Anticipation's raptured interval, 
Limbs interwoven, beating bosoms clasped. 

The tide had tiirned an hour : the outer deep 
Echoed with fainter music in our ears, 
Breathed in our blood soft, tuneful things of 

sleep : 
And soft, pleached sunlights dried her passion's 

tears. 
I watched a thousand recollections creep 
In faint, qtiick flushes from her bosom's nest 
To hide among her golden shade of hair. . . . 
My lovely Aphrodité! Oh, to rest 
All weariness of sordid struggle there, 
But once again! To me thou wast more fair, 
And art, than aught; and full of God's own love 



28 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 

And all the wonder of His wedded years! 
I kissed His hand when I have kissed thy breast, 
Surely, if there be God found anywhere! 
My Aphrodité! Only once again! . . . 
The memory of our mingling soars above, 
Star-like, among the spheres. 
Fraught with new meaning is the stellar Wain: 
God's lovely lust is wound about the stars, 
And every earthly atom woos its kind! 
All pregnant Nature teemed that avatars 
Be born in Man, to breed from every wind 
Response of holy Truth, so that the mind 
Of all men hear His message in their youth; 
And hearing, know, as know they surely can, 
That naught which man may ever do for Truth 
Compares with all that Truth shall do for man! 
Truth only may teach Beauty, Beauty this :— 
That Love alone is worthy lord of souls; 



APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 2g 

Hate, but a hireling still the beast controls — 

Ugly, a mean thing, full of blemishes, 

That yet shall rise, as man rose from the beast, 

Through many purifyings, till its yeast 

Be potent as a purer Manhood's barm 

For use on evil only, and all harm 

Has löst its power to choke the centuries. 

Yea! in that tranquil hemisphere of time 

Men call the future hate shall cleanse the earth 

With manifold Truth's teaching, for sublime 

Example even unto love that worth 

Is in all things that best fulfil their birth. 

Yea! as the Yeast of God, in man shall rise 

The sun of Truth, till evil come to dearth 

Among the outer darkness, and fulfil 

Its life in one great catacomb of 111. . . . 

As I dreamed thus beside her, here her eyes, 

That had been veiled awhile with drowsy peace, 



30 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 

Opened: it seemed she knew my thoughts. "To 

these, 
O Love of Mine, shalt add this other thing: — 
Lust was, that Love might be. They blaspheme 

God 
Who criticise His methods. Lust is good, 
And he who mocks it doth imbue his blood 
VVith mockery against God's grace of Spring. 
Lust is His breath who quickened all a world — 
Too good a thing to waste on baser joy: 
Whoso shall lose his lust in loveless ease 
Shall find his pleasure only to destroy. 
This shall be truth for lovers : — Only love 
Than lust in them should holier be : above 
All other ways shall this one purify!" 
She paused in thought. Then both her white 

arms curled 
Softly about my neck. She whispered : ''Dear, 



APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 31 

Remember this hereafter; I am near, 

Yea, very near thee always; and would guide 

My poet's passions only to her side 

Thou mayest love, and loving her, love me/' 

She spake the last a trifle wistfully. 

''And I will so awake, I promise thee, 

Her woman's nature, thou needst never roam 

To clasp me ever by this island foam. . . . 

My memory shall move ye in your home." 

At that I made to answer ; but she stopped 
My mouth with many kisses for a space. 
I kissed her tender eyelids when they dropped, ' 
That could not hide the longing in her face. 
But afterwards, again I answered her, 
''My goddess, though were every woman fair, 
That would not make her love me — make her 
love: 



32 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 

I doubt some women know what love may be!" 
Her eyes were laughing as she answered me. 
"No? Can all men love? Art a foolish one! 
There are some things e'en poets' brains above. 
I say we women are so great at it, 
So old we are in passion^s lovely lore, 
Not all men-poets that the sun shone on 
Have guessed how deep Desire in us can sit 
And sing such songs as Sappho sang of yore — 
Nay, sings in us for ever! There is more 
Of God's own meaning than a man may guess 
In Woman that is Woman!" . . . Stränge dis- 
tress 
Shook out in tremors through her f rame : she 

wept 
Such poignant tears as only women keep. 
And long it took to kiss them into sleep : 
The tide was out ere she had ceased to weep. . . . 



APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 33 
Only the wind sighed. ... In her arms I slept. 

Evening. . . . The f urther sky had f aded light : 
It gave the sharp sea-line a deeper hue 
Than ere I slept: somewhat more darkly bright 
The sea seemed, — one unbroken, lovely blue 
Save for its höst of small waves falling white, 
As the slow tide made över emerald rocks 
And broad brown levels of the chevroned sand 
That gleamed to gold in places. Aphrodite 
Sat by me, holding mine with one small hand 
The while the other spread out wayward locks 
For Fancy's idle weaving so I saw 
Her blue-blown bosom's founts that glimmered 

through 
Had fed too long the sea-wind's chilly maw. 
And at the sight my passion sprang anew 
To robe her round in warm protection's clasp. 



34 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 

But she brake from me with a sudden gasp — 
''O Love of Mine, the hour is come! Adieu! 
Adieu? Oh, ay! Farewell! ... yet not fare- 

well. . . . 
No more may Aphrodité be such bride 
To thee as she. . . . Ålas ! Ålas !'' she cried. 
I seized her then, her resolution tried 
So sorely, that she, moaning, made to tell 
I should once more take all my last long fill 
Of her; but, soon as I had had my will, 
She must be gone for ever from my side — 
In mortal shape, that is. . . . And here the 

tide, 
Meseemed, spake sudden from a falling wave 
Of deeper tone than heretofore. She gave 
A nod of piteous gesture to the sea: 
Her smooth throat shuddered as she echoed, 

"Hark!" 



APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 35 

And in her eyes a birth of tears grew dark: 
And then she ga ve her lovely self to me. 

But of some things we spake. ... I shall not teli 
Of that last anguish of our mingled lives, 
That like some unforgetful fever drives 
Along my blood this moment. How she made, 
As the stars strengthen, so desire in me 
More manifest with lovely light and shade. 
This may I : — At the last we kissed farewell, 
There by the shore of that dark evening sea, 
That ne'er may fade from out my memory 
Till life's last pulse has faded in a knell. . . . 
Yea, we stood up together at the last: 
She had looked seaward thrice: her blown hair 

fell 
In whispering, wild sadness — "It is past!" — 
About my breast. . . . The tide was calling home 



36 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 

My lovely one. She shivered in a blast 

That sounded like a summons from the foam 

She might not disobey. . . . And then I heard 

Far ont upon the sea-line, near the sun, 

A murmur of waves falling grow to one 

Clear word, that shone like sea-birds, seen 

afar, 
Shine when they leave the water suddenly; 
And silent as the foam fades, or a står 
Among wide waste sea-waters was that word 
The sea-line spake to me. 
A.nd, as it came, the trees around were stirred 
Strangely, as of some Sorrow passing through: 
And the wind rose three sudden times and 

shrilled. 
And at the sound the shadow of the sea 
Passed över eyes that had been heaven's hue ; 
And thrice her hair was shaken as it filled. 



APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 37 

With sharp, small sounds she stifled ere they 

grew 
Larger and tore my ears, while passion thrilled 
Her tightened arms. And then our lips with- 

drew 
That had shut härd in stricken hold on each: 
And blind with parting's pain 
I stood where we had lain; 
And from our bridal-bed had last of speech 
With her, my bride. For now she turned again — 
The tide was round her little feet — and called; 
And all the sea in echo rose and f ell : 
'Tarewell, O Love! O Mortal Love, farewell! 
We have not loved in vain! 
Already in me quickens graft of thee! 
And all my womb, with mortal love enthralled, 
Shall burgeon with fresh fruit of Poetry! 
That poetry which makes men to me turn, 



38 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 

Even as thou didst mix with me, to make 
My love a meaning so their senses ache 
With purer passion when their lust shall burn : — 
Seeing that loveless lust begets a rod, 
Whereby the soul is beaten from the brute, 
And the blind brute knows but the beast for 

God; 
Till God's own voice be mute, 
Where blasphemy for ugliness doth yearn. 
And now I go ! Take comf ort ! I am near 
When thou shalt clasp some tender woman kind ! 
Surely, I promise thee, shall be more dear 
Her kisses, for my teaching !" And the wind 
Spake of a sudden, solemn; and the trees 
Shook, all together; and a shape of foam 
Clung wildly white upon her, round her knees : 
Her hair, her hand, waved ; and she turned her 

home. 



APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 39 

Then from the bower of birch-trees, that had 

hung 
With tender tapestries our joys, and sung 
Our bridal benison, I brake and cried, 
As one from whom love's last despair has wrung 
Hatred of future living. In the tide, 
As men may fling life from them, then I flung, 
And sought my death in tombs that held my 

bride. 
But with soft strength resistless I was borne, 
Three separate times of struggle, back to land — 
She would not let me drown. So life forlorn 
Went up with bafBed death once more to stånd 
'Midst those green imprints of impassioned 

hours, 
Where fragrant from her body lay the grass, 
And the mute stems of broken bluebell-flowers 
Bore bridal-witness. Thence I saw her pass 



40 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 

Toward the falling darkness far away, — 
Her gold hair like a floating flame. Ålas ! 
The lovely golden head that might not stay. 
Swift sank the sun from out otir wedding- 

day 
And sorrowful for me that simdown showed 
The while I watched her, passing, float afar. 
Till, in her place, there loomed a sudden står 
And through a mist of purple twilight glowed 
Insistent, white, and wonderful. And soon, 
As one that sees a darkness on the moon, 
Infected with an earthlight, shape and shine — 
Upon the shadow of the further coast 
I saw, above the wan foam-water's line, 
A glooming shape that floated on the dark 
Of ApriFs ebbing flood, against a ghost — 
Like a faint flame that silver limbs display — 
And glimmered lonely o'er the wave : a stark. 



APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 41 

Still shape that gloomed beside a silver ray — 
The crescent of a month that might be May. 

And, as befoundered by some larger sense, 
By passion brotight to birth for vain delight — 
Whose wings, ålas, are less than infinite, 
Nay, weak as wide and wild with the Immense — 
My soul beat blindly down that bridal-night 
Whose joy was flown be före its screen of stars 
Had dropped a veil of splendours dark and 

bright 
On loveds own splendid shame. As iron bars 
The darks that shut upon me seemed, and rang 
As iron rings reverberant when my soul, 
Too feeble for the quest on which it sprang, 
Shuddered upon them ; till such strong control 
As Frenzy has for madmen rioted 
Its own despair to ruin that was ease, 



42 APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 

And the mad stars, distraught as mine own head, 
Grew quiet with their old accustomed peace. 
Then like a man from such a grave arisen 
As holds the springtide-splendours of a dream, 
'Gainst which is Ii fe a thing grown påle in prison, 
My soul went sadly forward down a stream 
Of half-remembered twilight things that draw 
The patient pulses from their sleepy blood 
Back into power of living. Soon I saw , 

The darkness break and scatter from a wood, 
Familiar with a höst of laughing leaves 
In England's loveliest late April mood, 
That drew my feet by threads of grassy track 
Adown green slopes and sunlight. Sense con- 

ceives 
No light so swift as then came rolling back 
The town above, the bridge whereon I stood. 



APHRODITE AT LEATHERHEAD 43 

Then I awoke, and watched a little space 
The f our small streams grow into one ; and heard 
A train behind me whistle. But the place 
Was stränge for Surrey still. And afterward, 
Her name clung to my ears^ her glory glowed, 
At every bend along the London road. 



APR 24 1913 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 570 621 A 



